The Outsider
by Rody One-Half
Summary: The one behind the curtain is neither enemy nor friend.


_**The Manticore**_

The business of sacking, Armory Lorch decided, was beginning to get tiresome. Not only did it usually follow the potent mix of boredom and deprivation that defined the average siege, but it involved far too many tight spaces for the knight's liking. Houses, alleys, castles, everyone crammed together and trying to shove their way through. It was the business of infantry, he felt, not knights. _Give me a nice raid,_ he thought, _buncha peasants, scattered around their mud huts and fields, run em down, pick through their things afterward_. _Or even a proper battle, with some good charges to get the blood up._

Even today, where there'd been no siege whatsoever, and no defenders arrayed for proper resistance, the business of the sack had turned nasty in places. Old Aerys had some of his men chucking pots of wildfire of all things! Add to that having to race at full speed up and over the walls of the Red Keep itself ahead of the main force, and it'd just been far too harrowing a day for his taste. _Almost got it in the face with some of that emerald shite. Not too much of it flying about thankfully, maybe the old goat was running low? Or maybe he's locked himself up with a load of it, who knows with lunatics._

As he and his small cadre of guardsman followed after their leader in this task, Lorch could at least rest easy knowing that there'd be no shoving on his part through the Keep itself. After all, no need to shove when none other than The Mountain That Rides was leading the way. At this point, the loyalists they encountered in the halls either fled before them or found themselves being used to paint the walls as punishment for daring to obstruct Ser Gregor Clegane. Indeed, much the same was occurring throughout the Keep, as the main forces poured in after them, defenders dying in droves or scattering behind them.

It hardly mattered either way, for Lorch. It wasn't soldiers that concerned the knights and their five foot today, and fight or die, this war was over for the dragon's servants, their hopes drowned with their prince and washed away by the waters of the Trident. No, Clegane and Lorch were here for a different purpose: cleanup. As they emerged from their walkway into a courtyard, their target stood before them: the last holdfast of mighty Maegor the Cruel, the fortress within a fortress that held the royal apartments.

"Always another damn wall to scramble up, eh Clegane?" the Manticore Knight joked, not that his audience made any indication of caring.

Over the dry moat filled with iron spikes, beyond the twelve foot thick walls, and through a handful of Targaryen guardsmen, ( _but no Kingsguard,_ Lorch noted with a mixture of relief and confusion), the seven dispatched by Tywin Lannister found what they sought: the royal nursery. A septa barred their way, the holy woman pleading mercy for those within. Mercy was not a concept The Mountain had ever grasped, as she found when he casually smashed her aside. "Lorch. Take the men, search upstairs," was his first and only remark to his companions that day. They did not need much prodding on the matter.

Leaving Clegane to do what he did best, Lorch sighed internally as he took point, hoping he wouldn't have to shove past more tedious guards. _There's always some fool looking for a glorious last stand_ , he noted as he reached the next floor and entered the first door he found. "Well!" he said joyously, spotting immediately his quarry and pulling out a knife. "Lucky us boys, got her in one!"

A mere child of three, Princess Rhaenys, daughter of the late Crown Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, screamed the moment the door opened. Having sought shelter and comfort in her father's own bedchamber, and hardly understanding the events of the day (or indeed, the war in general), one thing the girl did grasp: these strangers meant her ill. But such a child has little and less to protect themselves, and the most she could do was dive under her father's bed as the men surged into the room.

Lorch was on her in an instant, dropping to the floor and swiping at her retreating legs. The first attempt failed, but the second succeeded, "Now, now, little dragon, enough of that racket!" he said mockingly as he dragged the child out as the guardsmen with him laughed. Laughter that increased, much to Lorch's irritation, when the struggling toddler kicked him in the face and slipped his grip, retreating back under the bed as he rubbed his eyes in irritation.

Now adding humiliation to exhaustion, Lorch again relished the notion of raiding the countryside rather than storming a keep. He directed these frustrations back to the task at hand, and soon the girl was pulled back to the floor. "No more games," he spat, and dropped his dagger towards her spine as she clawed the floor to escape.

But it never connected.

In an instant, everything went wrong. The blade halted, a hair's breadth above the skin, as if blocked by a thin layer of invisible steel. Then, before the guardsmen could process this miracle, there was a flash, and a roar. A great force blew out from the tip of the dagger, sending Lorch and his men flying across Rhaegar's bedchamber, upending furniture, smashing a hung mirror, and generally destroying the room. One of the unlucky footmen was thrown out the window to his demise.

But cruel and lazy though he was, Amory Lorch was a professional soldier, and regained his sense first, pulling himself to his feet. In front of him now, her cries ceased, stood the daughter of Rhaegar. She was… examining herself, as if she'd never looked at her own body before. The room, too, she scanned with her eyes, as if it was unfamiliar. And of course, she was noting the presence of Lorch and his 4 remaining men.

Lorch did not wish to see where this was latest development was going to lead. His knife had flown afar, but his sword still hung at his side, and he quickly moved to draw it, "Now's not the time for any last bit of bloody Valyrian witchcra-"

Silence. Silence gripped Amory Lorch. Silence, a mysterious force which halted his movement, and panic. _What nonsense is this?_ He wondered, as sweat gathered on his face.

A tiny hand reached up, and placed itself on his cheek, while his men stared at the scene in horror and confusion. " _Kill her you idiots, I can see that you can move!"_ He wished to say, but it was only Rhaenys who voiced her thoughts.

"So… this was how your fate reached its end?" She spoke, in a tongue neither knight nor soldiers knew. "Very well, then in gratitude, I shall end this matter." The hand slid across his cheek… and he felt _fire_. Though he was unable to scream, though there was no fire, surely, Amory Lorch did burn. His sense died, his thoughts ceased, his flesh and bone melted away and turned to dust, followed by his arms and armor. In mere moments, it was as if he was never there at all. One soldier regained his senses, and in doing so fled for the door, only to be struck by a beam of light from Rhaenys' fingertip, turning to ash. "I see." She said, and now the soldiers understood her. "So that was the situation. Troublesome that I must exert myself immediately, convenient that the means to do so was at hand." She then casually waved her hand in direction of the remaining three guards without sparing them a glance, and then they too were dust.

"Then for now, I shall repay my debt, and decide my next move thereafter."


End file.
